


Running in the North

by Captainsomnia



Category: Original Work
Genre: Mental Health Issues, Mentions of Myth & Folklore, Multi, Paranormal, Rated For Violence, Unreliable Narrator, Werewolves, and graphic depictions of wounds, native american legends, some gore, specifically some stuff from the Yakama nation and the wendigo, trippy imagery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-06
Packaged: 2018-11-28 20:11:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11425314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Captainsomnia/pseuds/Captainsomnia
Summary: Bennie knows there's something watching him out in the woods. It's the matter of what that's scaring him. Margaret tells him it's all in his head. And he believes her.Until the wolf comes.





	Running in the North

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! It's been a while, huh? I hope you're all ready for this... thing. I'm working in it for the rest of the summer and my goal is to finish this part by August. It will be in three separate works with around five to six chapters each. This first one does have some descriptions of graphic wounds, so this is a warning! As always, I hope you guys read and stick around to see it complete, enjoy!

'A change of scenery,' she said that was all he needed. Someplace calm for him to recover and gain back his sense of self. Bennie thought it was a great idea. Take a few months, vacation then work from home- it was supposed to be easy on him.

The town looked inviting enough when he'd first arrived. Now, it seemed that the town was against him. They don't like outsiders much, he learned. It wasn't just Bennie, though, it was tourists and families outside of town and the reservation just a mile away from them. The woods made them lonely, Margret told him, the isolation made them dislike anyone not from here so much.

The woods were all encompassing, Bennie thinks by week four.

"You're just being paranoid," Margaret, his spectacular therapist and friend of a whopping six years, tells him during their biweekly phone call after he tells her so. "You need to relax, Ben. You'll get nowhere in your recovery if you don't learn to let your guard down."

Yeah, letting his guard down was something he should definitely do. This thought is sarcastic at best when he feels the pickling anxiety in his veins as eyes bore into his skull. He can feel it. The watching. It's been going on for nearly a month. Margaret tells him it's nothing, but... he can't help but think.

The woods were watching. Patiently, quietly. They were watching him and he was staring back, hoping and fearing endlessly for something- anything to be out there. A person, an animal, the beast he hears breaking the sin of the late night. Anything to quell this feeling that he was going insane. And maybe he was, as he inched closer to the rain-drenched pane of glass. Looking past to the tree line, expecting it to be looking back with similar interest. His breath fogged the window and the floorboards strained under his toes as he pushed himself further into the window, nose caught on the moistened glass and lashes an inch away.

The woods were mocking at best, laughing in the winds blowing up from the valley and twisted eyes carved into the dark bark. Any moment, any turn of a branch or shift of a bush could be it. He could finally end this- find out what was staring back at him and be done, free.

Would he, though? Will he truly be free, after finding out what it was? What would happen? What if it was a man? What would he do then?

There was a flash in the corner of his shivering gaze. His neck ached at the speed in which he whipped his head to find it. Bennie combed the tree line, watching as the shrubs and low hanging leaves shook with the thing. It was heading down the valley side, coming closer and closer to him. Clawing its way through the mud to his backyard.

The large claws were what caught his eye first, dark clay colored and peaking from under leaves. The snout, twitching and huffing hot puffs of luminescent plumes into the air at a fast pace, pushed out next. Following a bowed head, ears flat and body radiating tiredness.

Bennie didn't know if he felt scared out of his mind or eager to assist the creature as its limp became easily apparent. Broad shoulders of the lumbering dog were torn up badly on one side, making the canine struggle to make use of its left front leg entirely.

He was out the door before he realized it, feet firmly planted in wet grass as he watched the beast, much larger than any wolf he could imagine, look up at him. It's gaze was piercing, a shocking gold that made Bennie's stomach roll in fear. He was scared stiff, stuck cursing himself out as the dog slowly came closer. It's fur was matted near black in spots dyed with blood, but from the placement of the only visible wound, Bennie could tell it was not the dog's own. Fear and concern waged war in his mind as he attempted to access what he had to do in this situation. He's flush with some sense of twisted victory at finally finding out what was watching him, that small fear that he's crazy, however, was far from being quelled when he walked outside. Or when he stayed outside. Perhaps, the true topping on the cake, was when he had the fleeting idea to reach out if the beast got closer. It did. So, poetically, stupidly, Bennie reached forward. Groping for the dog in the dim light of the moon.

He was entranced by it, the way the fur moved above muscle and its eyes gazed at him. They were too knowing, glinting at him in a way that said "I know you. I've known you. You are only allowed to know me now." And they blinked, slow and hazy. Tired and delirious from blood loss, quite likely. Maybe tired from putting up a good fight. Yellow eyes flecked brown and were framed by thick brown lashes. Almost... too human, for Bennie's taste in stray dogs that watched him from the woods.

The dog, huge and standing chest height to him, offered its head. Treading forward with heavy paws. Snout bumping into Bennie's chest and inhaling, deep and fast. Scenting, he thinks in the back of his mind. The dog was trying to get a good smell of him. Bennie's hand fell hesitant into the clay red fur of the wolf. It was coarse and cool, slightly damp from the rain, like the rest of the world was. He dug his fingers in, brushing up under the double coat and feeling the warmth radiating underneath. It whimpered and leaned its weight on Bennie, muzzle sliding over his shoulder and eyes slipping shut. Here, Bennie had a better angle to look at the shoulder wound it's got. There's a deep three slices , Bennie thinks he sees bone at one point, and he feels nauseous.

He swallows thick saliva, "Ok, uh... Boy? We gotta get you into the house? I need to clean your wound out?" He doesn't sound insane, no not at all. He sounds perfectly reasonable, talking to a giant dog in his backyard at ten at night.

The beast sighed, stepping forward, the weight forcing Bennie forward as well. They continued to carefully tread backwards to the back door, where Bennie pulled away from the dog to open the door for it. The dog whimpered when it was left to stand on its own.

Bennie pushed the door open wide when his trembling fingers finally opened it. He was screaming at himself in his head. Wondering how the hell he got here, watching a giant wolf stumble into his home as if it hadn't stalked him for five weeks.

Bennie continued to question his life choices as he led the sad-looking beast to his small bathroom. It wasn't nearly big enough for them both. The dog ended up in the tub, laying in it dejectedly. As if it knew how sad it's situation was. He rushed around for peroxide, gauze, briefly wondering if Neosporin was going to serve necessary, and settling on a large box of cotton soaked in antibacterial solution.

Then he turned, quick on his heel and nearly tripping into the tub full of dog. He stops his manic movements for a moment and meets the canine's tired gaze unwillingly.

"What the hell am I doing?" The wolf snorts loudly, mocking him.

He kneeled on the cold tile slowly, falling eye level to the open gash. Hands shaking a little too much, he reaches over to turn a flap of skin and fur to its rightful place. His stomach lurches. 'You can do this, Bennie,' he thinks somberly, 'just remember all that medical stuff from television.' Clean the wound, disinfect it, and wrap it up. Simple. A kid could do it. He just... has to look past the whole flesh and blood part. He'll be fine. The dog will be fine.

He takes a deep breath and begins the grueling process of washing the blood out of the fur the best he could with a damp towel. Moving small parts of skin where he thought they were supposed to go and taking immense gratification in the wolf's near silent simpers. He picked up the bottle of alcohol and held in the beast's face, it made a noise between a whine and a growl, but stayed still. Bennie shook in fear. Not one second was spent not regretting his choices this evening.

"Stupid, stalker wolf. Had to bang yourself up didn't cha?" He sighs, more sad than he is mad. "This could get all sorts of messed up if you'd have left it."

It lets out a huff. Bennie lets one out in return, mockingly. The wolf turns, tired gaze staring into him for a moment before laying back down. Bennie laughed loudly, it's ears swiveling to listen closer.

"This is it." He chuckles, dropping the blood soaked cloth on the white tile. That's going to be a bitch in the morning to clean. "I'm going crazy, friend. I'm going positively crazy."

He dampens a new towel with the alcohol, about to press it to part of the wound before he thinks a moment. Then, in a fit of realization he holds the entire bottle just above the wound, ready to pour, before he stops.

"This is going to hurt." Is the only warning the dog gets.

Bennie is sure that the howl it lets out echoes the entire town. It tenses up more as he thoroughly cleans out the wound, but thankfully returns to simpering and soft growling. It holds as still as the beast can muster, save for involuntary twitching of muscles. Those of which occurs mostly in the wound itself, to Bennie's disgust. He gags the first time, but tamed his soft pallet enough to not have him near heaving each time he witnesses it.

Bennie pulls away minutes later, satisfied at the cleanliness of the wound, and grabs the gauze. Unraveling it a bit, he starts to pull the gash together and close it. His hands, no longer shaking by some good grace, tuck the loose pieces of flesh down and cover it in the wrapping. Almost done. With this wound and this dog and this night. Bennie is so close to having it all be over.

He smiles as he ties the gauze tight around the dog's shoulder. The canine sags with apparent relief from the poking and prodding Bennie had done. Bennie falls against the tub, tired and elated, feeling like he's done the first good thing in a long time.

He's eager to forget why the dog was stalking him, or if it was all in his mind and the dog wasn't even there up until tonight. A cold chill raced down his spine. If it weren't this dog, then, what could have been watching him? Maybe as the saying goes, if one comes, more are to follow.

That, however, is something that can wait until morning. Bennie rises from the floor, picks up the totally ruined towels, and tosses them into the waste bin. He looks over to address the dog, only to find it's eyes slipped closed and body lax. Asleep. Bennie sighs, walking over to the door and shutting it softly.

Many things can wait for the Bennie of tomorrow to deal with, all Bennie can do now is wash himself off in the kitchen sink and fall into bed, oblivious to the world outside of his home.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you guys liked the first chapter! If you did, kudos are super nice! If there is anything that you see grammatically wrong with it, tell me and I'll fix it before the next chapter comes out (hopefully). If you want want to talk to me, I'm on tumblr!
> 
> Captainsomnia.tumblr.com


End file.
